


Hendiadys

by glim



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-10
Updated: 2010-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-11 01:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/106588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They've already worn each other inside out and fretted each other's edges.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Hendiadys

To Merlin, his and Arthur's fate did not appear as the double-sided coin or the never halved-whole, but as a tangled up thing. A parti-colored knotting together of threads, some picked out in red, blue, or gold, already frayed in places, gleaming in others. Tug to loosen one strand, the rest only tightened around each other more inextricably than before. Smooth the edges and the center re-knotted itself into something more achingly complex until even the most careful fingers wouldn't be able to differentiate between beginnings and endings of separate strands.

He found the image deeply, simultaneously frustrating and reassuring.

*

It came to Merlin in the slight shift of wind, the taste of the air on his tongue sharp with blood and late autumn rain, the chill numbing his fingers as he waited at the edge of the battlefield.

The tug, the ache, the space between knowing and feeling, the pain that dulled and doubled inside him, all of it twisted around the magic inside him and was twisting around the magic outside him.

The wind whipped through his hair and scattered the rain across Merlin's face.

Camelot was at war; the battle had turned, dismally; Arthur wouldn't fight tomorrow.

*

Morning arrived, strange, silent, still, and grey, and Merlin sat down at the edge of Arthur's camp bed, touched his forehead, cheek, lips, the side of his neck.

"I'll cast a glamour, so I appear as you and you, me. Your men need to see you on the battlefield. Can you get up long enough to arm me?"

In the space of one breath, he told Arthur his secret, unraveled a knot between them. Arthur, overcome with fever and pain, nodded, though his hand caught Merlin's wrist to hold him close.

For a second, they were one; then, each other.

*

"There is a story." Arthur stood by the window, framed in shadows and the dying light. "A warrior, and his dearest companion."

Merlin didn't know the story and Arthur wasn't telling it. He was, instead, crossing the room to stop Merlin's hand from lighting the candles, and standing near enough that his body warmed Merlin's and they measured their breathing together.

They've already worn each other inside out and fretted each other's edges, so desperate hands and lips, Arthur's ragged breath against Merlin's collarbone, only felt like another unraveling (clothes, limbs, speech), another tightening (that new ache in his chest).

*

Merlin rubbed his thumb up along Arthur's jaw until his fingers tangled into Arthur's hair, and Merlin could lean in to brush his mouth over Arthur's. They'd been one, and each other, and now, finally, themselves, both together and apart.

"I'm not going to die on the battlefield."

"How do you even know that?"

"Does it matter?" 

Arthur tensed, the moonlight falling in pale stripes over his hair, the bedclothes, and Merlin's hands. He shook his head and the same light refracted in aching and wonderful patterns in his eyes. "No," he murmured against Merlin's lips, easing close, "it doesn't."


End file.
